Some Recent Books of Travel

LAMB’S lines, —

although they do not rank high as poetry, express a widely felt truth. No one can be insensible to the contrast between the peace of the library and the turmoil that has made the traveler’s book interesting; and even the less exciting volumes give some entertainment to those who are curious about their fellow-men in foreign climes. When the statement of facts is such fascinating reading one cannot help wondering that Jules Verne — who is the most prominent offender in this respect — should find it necessary to cram his books with the charlatanry that has made his name notorious. In his melodramatic books he caricatures science, and falls in interest far behind those writers who simply record the truth. Yet no one can ever read the description of a journey without being reminded of his old friends, Eyes and No-Eyes. Some travelers will go round the world and come home with hardly anything more than a list of their breakfasts, and especially of the breakfasts they did not eat. Others, again, seem to have that most desirable quality, a touch of omniscience. Indeed, a traveler in remote regions has to fit himself out with a good knowledge of botany, geology, philology, etc., before he can observe properly strange countries and their inhabitants, and before he can satisfy the public at home that is ever growing more exacting in what it demands of those who write about their journeys.

The report of the Challenger Expedition ¹ is, as one would naturally expect, a model of completeness. The aims of the investigators were clearly defined beforehand, the main object being the study of the physical and biological conditions of the great ocean basins. Precise instructions were given with regard to all the details of this vast task. They were to record the temperature of the air, of the surface of the water, of the sub-surface strata, — that is to say, at every five fathoms down to twenty fathoms, at every two hundred and fifty fathoms down to twelve hundred and fifty fathoms, and at the bottom,— with especial attention to any marked deviation. Currents and tides were to be carefully investigated. So far as possible the elevation or subsidence of the land was to be noted. The specific gravity and transparency of the water were to be ascertained, and chemical observations made of the water and sea-bottom. The botanist, too, had his work cut out for him, and the zoölogist was not to be idle.

For the thorough performance of these complex labors a good part of the ship was converted into a floating laboratory, with the various scientific instruments required — and they were many — nearly placed in the compactest space, and with the best accommodations for work that could be devised. A chapter is devoted to the description of the means at the command of the scientific men in their manifold occupations, with illustrations showing the various instruments used, sounding - machines, trawls, etc., as well as the stationary apparatus. The two volumes are mainly filled with a full account of the work done by the men who were thus admirably prepared. The men themselves were carefully chosen: Professor Wyville Thomson was appointed the head of the civilian scientific staff, with numerous assistants, among whom was a young German, Dr. Rudolf von WillemoesSuhm. He died on the 13th of September, 1875, and an interesting volume, written, if we are not mistaken, by his mother, gives not only an admirable account of his zoölogical investigations, but also an inspiring picture of scientific enthusiasm. It is a book that might repay translation; certainly those who know German would find it worth reading.

As may be imagined, this report does not waste space on what fills the ordinary entertaining book of travels. That vague person, the general reader, to whom all is caviare except the narration of incidents and accidents, will not find much here to delight his soul. It is no indirect attack against this book to say that there are other scientific reports which are more generally interesting reading. Darwin’s account of the voyage of the Beagle, for instance, will fascinate almost every one, mainly because the multitude of diverse subjects that the author writes about is pretty sure to strike some stray whim or fancy of almost every reader, while there are few who care for more than very vague information about the temperature of the sea and the formation of the seabottom. Of course, these volumes were not written for the humoring of the popular taste, which will be fully gratified by very weak dilutions of the mass of information they contain. Those, however, who care for a full account of so well organized an expedition will be duly grateful for Sir Wyville Thomson’s thoroughness. He gives a satisfactory description of those parts of the long voyage which have to do with the Atlantic Ocean, with a log of the scientific work in compact tables, diagrams, and lists, and clear statements of the general results obtained.

The course of the ship, on its departure from England, December 21, 1872, was first to the Canary Islands, this part being regarded as merely tentative, and as an opportunity to get everything into working order, and it was only after sailing from that port that the real labor began. The run was made from Teneriffe to Sombrero, thence to the Bermudas, and from them to Halifax, across the Gulf Stream. Returning to the Bermudas, they sailed eastward to the Azores and Madeira, and thence to the coast of Brazil, and so, across the South Atlantic, to the Cape of Good Hope, which they reached October 28, 1873. It was not until January 20, 1876, that they sailed into the Atlantic again, through the Strait of Magellan, on their somewhat less tortuous homeward voyage.

Although the author explains that it is yet too early to make a full report of all the scientific information that has been acquired, there is certainly enough included in the final summary to attract every one’s attention. Some of the most interesting results, briefly condensed, are the following: The supposition that the depth of the Atlantic increases rather suddenly to between two thousand and twenty-five hundred fathoms along the coasts of Europe and North Africa is confirmed. From Teneriffe westward, except at one spot, the water deepens to thirty-one hundred and fifty fathoms at the bottom of a wide valley which extends more than half - way across the Atlantic. Then there is a rise to nineteen hundred fathoms, and another depression to three thousand and fifty fathoms, and thence it shoals rapidly up to the West Indies. The greatest depth discovered in the Atlantic was thirtyeight hundred and seventy-five fathoms, at a point north of the Virgin Islands, between St. Thomas and the Bermudas. The mean depth of the Atlantic is a little over two thousand fathoms. For the outlines of the different basins of greatest depth the reader must be referred to the book.

The bottom of the main Atlantic, at depths between four hundred and two thousand fathoms, is covered with a calcareous deposit, the globigerina ooze, which consists to a great extent of the more or less decomposed shells of pelagic foraminifera. These foraminifera Sir Wyville Thomson now holds, in opposition to his opinion before taking this voyage, to be inhabitants of the surface and upper strata of the water. At a greater depth than two thousand fathoms the ooze is replaced by a more or less homogeneous red clay, produced mainly by the decomposition of feldspathic minerals.

The distribution of the ocean temperature is reported at too great length to receive even the rough condensation of the two subjects just treated. The general facts and conclusions are to be found briefly recapitulated, vol. ii., pp. 279, 280, and these are what the reader would do well to consult. The first conclusion being “ that the Atlantic must be regarded in the light of an inlet or gulf of the general ocean of the water hemisphere, opening directly from the Southern Sea,” the temperature, with some few exceptions, is dependent on that of the Southern Sea, and, with the exception of the Labrador current (which gives the Boston east wind its diabolical sting) and the Spitsbergen current, the Atlantic is not specially affected by any cold indraught from the Arctic Ocean.

With regard to the fauna, even less can be said here. Animal life is to be found in the bottom of the ocean at all depths, though less abundantly at great depths, with a belt of complete, or nearly complete, absence of life between the surface and the bottom. Farther down than five hundred fathoms the ocean is inhabited throughout by a fauna presenting generally the same features. The forms most nearly related to extinct types seem to occur in the greatest abundance and of the largest size in the Southern Ocean.

But one might almost as well form an idea of the Atlantic Ocean from a teacupful of salt water as judge of the thoroughness and the fullness of these two volumes by this inadequate sketch. They are valuable store-houses of information, recording most lucidly the results of careful observation by trained men, and may serve another good purpose as the memorials of a wise and generous act on the part of the English government. It is doing them injustice to try to skim scraps of information from these painstaking chronicles of scientific work.

Archdeacon Gray’s book on China² will be found well worth attention. There is no need of repeating the many causes that have kept that country comparatively unknown; it is enough to say that we have here a book written, not by a traveler, but by a man who can be fairly considered an inhabitant of the land he describes. The archdeacon nowhere tells us exactly how many years he has passed in China, but from the various dates he mentions it may be gathered that he has spent nearly, if not quite, twenty years there. They were years well spent. It would be hard to give any one who has not read the two volumes at all an adequate notion of the immense mass of information he has put together for us. He traces the course of the Chinaman front the cradle to the grave: he describes the ceremonies at his birth, his education, his marriage, or, more frequently, his marriages; he tells us about his death and his funeral rites; we find all his religious feelings, his numerous superstitions, set before us, as well as the care the government takes of good citizens, and the pains and penalties imposed on the vicious. We hear how the Chinaman who is refractory is tortured; and this is certainly curious reading at the present day, when the question of the treatment of the criminal classes is one of so great interest. In China torture is a recognized method of judicial procedure, and the punishments inflicted on those deemed guilty are indeed terrible.

What the author tells us about the religions of the Chinese is of importance, for it has been by no means easy to form a definite notion of the relation of Buddhism, for instance, to the people and to the other religions. That religion has indeed sunk from its old estate; most of the priests appear to be but little more than lazy monks, who are addicted to opium-smoking, although there are some who obey the laws of their creed by begging their bread from door to door. On the whole, Buddhism in China would seem to be a mass of superstition. At any rate, this is Dr. Gray’s verdict in the comparison he makes between this religion and Taonism on the one side, and Confucianism on the other.

A long article might be made out of judicious selections from these two wellpacked volumes, which surprise the reader by the great variety of the information collected. There seems to be nothing that has escaped the author’s careful observation; no subject seems strange to him; he speaks as one having knowledge of Chinese ways of thought and action, of their occupations, of the appearance of the country, etc., so that it will be only with a smile that the reader will receive Dr. Gray’s very humble apology for his ignorance of geology, and his consequent inability to speak of the geological formation of the country. Surely something must be pardoned to fallible man, and this slight omission would never have been noticed by the reader if attention had not been thus called to it. Other books, notably Baron Richthofen’s Travels in China, supply this gap, which is more than made up by the really immense mass of information given us about Chinese life.

A book of a very different kind is a volume on Constantinople,³ by Edmondo de Amicis. It makes no pretensions to adding to the sum of human knowledge, but it contains a brilliant and picturesque account of many of the wonders of that famous city. It is empty of statistics, being only a vivid record of what the traveler sees as he wanders about the narrow streets of the town and its surroundings, but it is written with so much real interest in the subject, and it shows such genuine admiration for the abundant artistic richness of Oriental life, that no one can fail to be affected by the writer’s enthusiasm. The travelers are not so very many who go to Constantinople, and they are still fewer who can equally well describe what is to be seen there. Everything fascinated the ardent young writer, and he put down on paper his impressions while they were still fresh; consequently, thanks to his vivid style, which well survives translation, the reader gets most glowing pictures of what can be best presented by such treatment. Though we may smile here and there at the writer’s excessive earnestness, it is to just this quality that the book owes its value. It is by no means a mere story of sight-seeing; the author reflected wisely on what he saw so keenly, and what he has to say concerning the Turkish character is worth reading. It will be found in one of the last chapters of this interesting book.

Canoeing in Kanuckia,⁴ by Messrs. C. L. Norton and John Habberton, describes a little tour in canoes made by those gentlemen and certain of their friends. They seem to have enjoyed their trip exceedingly,—one might almost say, excessively. They found everything amusing: if it rained, they were delighted; if the sun was hot, that too was an entertaining joke; but the height of happiness was attained when one or more of the canoes upset and its owner was ducked. One of the more important incidents of the voyage was the destruction of a coffee-pot by being held in the flames by an indiscreet amateur cook; but this is made much of, and the generally meagre outline of events is filled in with a faithful report of the incessant chaff in which the various members of the party indulged at each other’s expense. All this was doubtless amusing enough at the time, but it may be questioned whether it was of the texture of which entertaining books are made. It is safe to say that most readers will fail to find on the printed page the delight that the talk gave when it was uttered, and it would not be surprising if the authors, on reading it over, felt very much as those feel who are so deeply impressed by the strangeness of a dream that they try to narrate it to others and find their audience singularly indifferent. Half of the pleasure of the trip was the freedom from work, the novel excitement of change, and the intoxication of moderate physical toil in the fresh air. The feeble, harmless little jokes sounded funny on account of the general exhilaration, but to print them in a book is as much a mistake as it would be to put up a statue to Helen’s Babies.

Mr. Bishop,⁵ on the other hand, made a very different journey in his canoe, and he has written a very different sort of book. Out of sheer love of adventure, he started from Quebec and found his way, with as little transportation of his canoe over land as possible, to the Gulf of Mexico. He made the journey as far as Troy with a companion, and the remaining part alone, in a paper canoe. The most interesting result of the trip is the proof that is given of the existence of a lagoon-like water-course along almost the whole length of the Atlantic coast, which of course stands in need of more improvements, —lighthouses, canals, etc., — but is yet, for long distances at least, open to vessels of light draught. Mr. Bishop’s account of his lonely journey is capital reading. He writes with great modesty, but it is impossible not to see the canoeist’s energy and courage. He made his way down the coast late in the autumn, and although there was consequently less danger from malaria at this season, the storms were frequent and severe. It was by no means a holiday trip, and his capsize in Delaware Bay was very different from the ordinary upset of the canoe which gives its occupant a sudden but not always disagreeable bath. As may be imagined, the arrival of a boat, made of paper, that had come from the Hudson River created a good deal of excitement in the Southern ports, and it is unnecessary to say that the adventurous explorer was received with the warmest hospitality. Mayors of cities greeted him with ceremonious welcome, and more than this, all along the comparatively remote course he followed, private citizens, “ low-down ” whites, crackers, and negroes treated him most generously. Some of the light he throws upon the people he met in this way is curious and interesting. Like many another traveler he has learned with his own eyes that our black brother is not a wholly upright citizen, and he corroborates all that is told of the general demoralization which the war and the subsequent legislation produced, while at the same time he does justice to the negro’s good qualities. In fact, the aim of the book is not to support any political theory, but to state what the author saw. Some of his anecdotes are very amusing, as, for instance, that of the debating society of the negroes at a town in Georgia; they called their club De Lyceneum; their two managers were respectively “ de disputaceous visitor ” and “de lachrymal visitor.” One of their subjects of discussion was, Which is de best, Spring Water or Matches?

Dr. Klunzinger’s book on Upper Egypt⁶ comes well recommended, with its introduction written by Schweinfurth, and it will be found to deserve all that is said in its praise. The author spent about ten years in Egypt, most of the time at Koseir on the Red Sea, and also in the Nile Valley, and this volume is a compact record of what fell under his observation in his intimacy with the Egyptians. What he has undertaken to do is to describe just what would meet the eye of the visitor of that region. He brings the Nile town clearly before us, with its inhabitants, and their manners and occupations are depicted by one who has sympathy as well as knowledge. The neighborhood of the Red Sea is the subject of some interesting chapters. A trip through the desert brings another kind of life and scenery before the reader.

Dr. Klunzinger, through his character as physician, saw the native Egyptians more intimately than do most Franks, and his tribute to their many good qualities attests his own freedom from prejudice and his kindliness of heart. He has written an entertaining book that is at the same time a store-house of information. No Nile traveler — and who that travels at all does not sooner or later visit the Nile? — can dispense with this useful volume. He will learn from it to take an interest in something beside the scenery and the ruins.

The late Turco-Russian war taught a good deal of geography to readers, and among the books that give agreeable instruction it will be hard to find one superior to Mr. James Bryce’s Transcaucasia and Ararat.⁷ The author, who is an experienced observer, entered the outlying Russian territories from Nijni-Novgorod by rail and post to Tiflis; thence he went to Erivan and back by rail to Poti, from which port he took the steamer along the southern shore of the Black Sea to Constantinople.

He describes the Volga and the scenery of Southern Russia entertainingly, but of course it is the part of the book which deals with the Transcaucasian provinces that is at present the most important. The remote dependencies are inhabited by a motley group of tribes, — Lesghians, Mingrelians, Ossetes, Suans, — to say nothing of the more numerous Georgians and Armenians. Of them all the Armenians alone seem living people; the rest are only half-civilized at the best, or are wholly devoid of the energy which seems to distinguish the Armenians among the other western Asiatics. All that Mr. Bryce has to say about the Russian policy in these countries is of value, because this is a bugbear to those who dread the future of that country, and also because it may be compared almost on the spot with the merits and failings of the Turkish rule. On the whole, the showing is good for Russia; not merely in comparison with Turkey, but with any other country that is stretching out its hand over weaker races. Of course a thick book might be written about the corruption of the administration, and, doubtless, about the faults of individual officials, but these annexed provinces would seem to have no very serious cause for complaint. Mr. Bryce is by no means a prejudiced observer, and here is what he says on an interesting point: “ The sort of good nature and susceptibility to impressions which is so marked a feature in the Russian character makes them get on far better with strange races than either we, or the Dutch, or the Spanish have ever been able to do. It is not occasional acts of cruelty, it is not even a permanently repressive system, that makes conquerors hated nearly so much as coldness, hauteur, contempt, an incapacity to sympathize with a different set of customs and ideas.”

The process of amalgamation between the Russians and the natives is very slow, and in many places imperceptible; but the Georgians and Armenians are sharing some of the advantages of the foreign civilization which is thrusting itself upon them. The state of the adjacent Turkish provinces is simply terrible, and apparently without hope of relief at the hands of the present rulers. While the Russians move slowly and clumsily forwards, the Turks move backwards, if at all.

In a brief notice like this it is impossible to give all the arguments Mr. Bryce uses to confirm a feeling of hopefulness regarding Russia, but they will be found throughout this book, put together in a distinct and unpartisan fashion by a man of knowledge and experience, who judges what he sees before him. This is the most important side of the book, which has also a great charm as a book of travel, as a record of adventure in comparatively unknown lands. It is full of humor and intelligence. One of the most noteworthy of the incidents is the author’s account of his solitary ascent of Mount Ararat. There are but few recent books of travel which are better worth reading.

Mr. Anderson’s book about the Silver Country ⁸ will remind the reader of those circulars which are written by men with real estate to sell. All will recall the lavish praise, the gentle, euphemistic blame, the silence concerning insuperable faults, with which one place after another is sung. This is just the way in which Mr. Anderson has prepared his little manual, so that one turns instinctively to the end of the book to find the price of a snug farm in that delicious region, where a man can pick up gold and silver nuggets as easily as he can gather whortleberries in a New England pasture, and can support life meanwhile in a temperate climate on the most delicious meats and fruits.

Mr. Anderson will probably brand as provincialism any indifference to his commendation of Arizona at the expense of the bleakness of New England. Here is one instance of the way the heart of the Yankee is wrung by this enthusiastic writer. Under the caption Silk are these words: “ The raising of silk cocoons was, many years ago, quite an industry in parts of New England, and many a fine field was covered with mulberry-trees, the leaves of which furnished food for the worms. But little remains of that industry there except the stumps of the trees. It has reappeared in New Spain, and has been accompanied with marked success. Of the 3937 pounds of silk cocoons,” etc.

And he goes on in this way about barley, wheat, corn, making his odious comparisons, and exulting over the New Spanish sugar, cochineal, wine, etc., by the side of which hard cider and ice make no show at all. And there are the gold and silver to boot.

Some prejudiced writers have spoken of deserts in New Spain; but they must be mistaken, since Mr. Anderson, who gives lists, covering pages, of authorities, says nothing about them. He throws in all Central America as the proper place for the emigrant to go to, with the easy grace map-makers used to show in placing the Mountains of the Moon in different parts of Central Africa. The hardy son of New England who has grown weary of pork and beans will find his mouth watering over accounts of the banquets of the Aztecs and of the Halls of the Montezumas, with the human sacrifices left out.

At the end of the book its real meaning appears: it is a plea for more railways. The reader who had not already guessed this explanation of the accumulation of so much second-hand lore and strictly original rhetoric will find himself led on from a discussion of Roman roads, with a quotation from Gibbon, through a few words on rivers and canals, to a fine outburst on railroads: “ The second half of the first century of the republic witnessed the commencement of the first railway in this country. It was in New England instead of New Spain, and near Boston. But it was simply a freight line of a few miles, to bring to market the products of a stone quarry. ... A glance at the map in the forepart of this volume shows that they [railways] have not yet crossed the great interior of New Spain, but end abruptly near the borders, as if afraid to trespass upon a country so rich in treasures.”

It is needless to point out to the reader the delicate way in which Mr. Anderson manages to mention two qualities of railways that are generally overlooked by writers, namely, their humility and their delicate perception of right and wrong. It would seem as if he wanted only passenger trains to bring passengers to this Eldorado, and possibly he would not object to the annexation of Mexico. What does Colonel Thomas A. Scott think of this book?

Mr. Munro-Butler-Johnstone ⁹ has written not only an entertaining but a very intelligent account of the famous fair at Nijni-Novgorod, with some discursive remarks on Russia and the Russian people. The reader can judge for himself exactly what the book is from the statement that it was first written in the form of letters to the London Daily News. This gives a certain warrant that it will be found worth reading and instructive, and such is the case. The author describes the great fair, not simply as if it were a device for the reward and delight of adventurous travelers, but in its manifold commercial and industrial relations. He has the best of feelings towards the little-known country that he visited, and what he has to say tends to encourage the same feelings in his readers. The clearness and fairness of the book make it a most startling contrast to the one just noticed.